Chapter 2: Old Friends

Spike sat in his apartment reading a novel, the title was "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King". He found it very interesting indeed.

Ever since the Hunters had disbanded and he went out to work for himself he took a page out of Nack's book and sold his finds, not on the black market though. He sold them to museums for about half the price that Nack would have but it was enough to let him live rather comfortably.

Just then the phone rang, it was still quite early in the morning and he was confused as to whom else other than an early bird (or porcupine) like himself would be awake at this time. He shrugged it off and placed his bookmark on the current page he was on before closing the book and putting it on his table.

He reached over and picked up the receiver.

"Hello, Spike speaking"

G'day mate! It's Nack.

The green porcupine smiled at the sound of his Australian accented friend.

"Why hello Nack, how's life?"

Its good mate, I got somethin' to ask you but it might sound a tad strange.

He raised an eyebrow.

"What's up?"

Well Nitey boy has disappeared on us, Amy said he was going to Gerald's old base mate, now I know he can take care of himself but I'm still worried about him and think we should go and well help.

He smiled before chuckling softly.

"Why Nack, that's so uncharacteristically nice of you"

Hardy har har mate…so are you gonna help or not?

"Of course I'll help; it'd be nice to have another Hunters adventure"

Good, well I'll meet you in the Mystic Ruins and we can look for our little lone wolf together.

"Alright Nack, see you there bye"

G'bye mate.

With that he hung up and his smile widened. He missed his old gang; it would be great to have another adventure with them as well. As he stood up and made his way to the door he stopped and laughed slightly to himself.

"This must be how Nite felt every time we went to catch somebody"

He continued to chuckle to himself as he left his apartment.

OOO

It only took Nite roughly an hour to reach the Mystic Ruins thanks to the train next to his apartment. Currently he was standing on the ledge with the mine cart, he could have gone the other way, which was much faster, but he liked mine carts.

"It's quite a view"

He smiled as he looked out over the vast jungle that was Mystic Ruins; he had always loved forests and jungles. They were so peaceful and quiet compared to his life on Pumpkin Hill with various treasure hunters and falling shards of green light always disturbing his peace. The ghosts weren't so bad as they seemed to be afraid of him, except when they were made out of lava.

"Now…time to go"

With that he promptly hopped off of the ledge, pulling his jacket out with his arms using it like a glider so he could gently land in the jungle below. He stood up and smiled before continuing along the way, he had a good feeling about today.

It took him roughly half an hour to find the entrance to Gerald's base with the three large tunnels with names over the top. "Shadow…Joz…Miles…" he took a moment to think, "Well…if I remember what Tails' old man told me, Joz was like there power guy…which means his one should suit me"

With that he smiled and entered. His good feeling still strong in his heart, but just as he entered the tunnel the huge doors closed behind him with a huge slam making the bounty hunter jump and spin around.

"Well…I guess power's been turned back on…that means this could be dangerous…"

The grin on his face widened.

"Cool!"

He turned again still smiling as he looked down the huge cave like tunnel; it was dank, cold and dark. Just like Pumpkin Hill, the darkness didn't bother him as he was nocturnal after all and very few in dim lights rivalled his eyesight.

As he walked down the long cave he came to a huge crevice and stopped to look down into it. He couldn't see the bottom.

"Hmmm…Pinocchio! Guess its empty…"

He pressed his hand against the wall to discover that it was a cold metal and smiled, he could use his magnet boots to work his way along it. He leaned down and tapped a button on each of his boots, a clicking sound was heard and then he leaped to the wall his boots and gloves sticking to it magnetically. He then started crawling along it humming to himself slightly.

"Spider man…Spider man…he can do…what a spider…huh, what am I talking about?"

He shrugged and continued, but he could feel something.

"Huh? Why does it feel like I'm moving…"

His eyes widened as he suddenly realised that the walls were moving towards each other, he would surely be crushed! In a panic he started to crawl along the wall faster but he was still moving to slow, he stopped and closed his eyes…he only had one chance!

"YAHHHH!"

With that he leaped up slightly thrusting his legs to the side so that one foot was on each wall doing the splits and using all of his strength to hold the walls apart with his legs, a rather strange look of agony on his face.

"This…will sting…later…"

He closed his eyes tightly to blank out the pain and started to shuffle along the rather painful passageway, pulling his tail in front of him so that it definitely wouldn't get trapped there when he made his way out.

He opened his eyes slightly and let slip a slight smile as he saw that he was now nearly free from his little torture, as he reached the end he was ver-near fired out of the corridor as the two walls slammed shut behind him, he landed on the hard floor rather un-elegantly as he was still in too much pain to stand up.

"Note to self…don't…come…back…"

With that he pushed himself upright on his weak legs but soon fell backwards onto his butt.

"I'll rest a while…who knows what else I'm gonna have to face…"

OOO

Nack was getting quite impatient; he'd been waiting outside of Gerald's base for quite some time now and Spike still hadn't shown up. Upon entering the area he had noted that one of the three tunnels from his last visit here was now closed off by some kind of metal shutter, the name above the tunnel was: Joz.

"Guess that's where my mate went then…where is Spike?"

Just then he recognised a familiar green figure charging towards him at lightning fast speeds and then come skidding to a halt directly in front of him with an out of place smile on his face which surprised the weasel.

"Are you alright mate, you're smiling?"

"Well to tell the truth…" the green porcupine began to laugh nervously "life has been kind of boring lately…so…"

"You're ecstatic at a chance for another Hunters adventure right?"

"Well…yeah, put simply"

Nack just shook his head before turning to look at the two remaining tunnels: Shadow and Miles.

"Well mate, it looks like Nitey boy's gone down the Joz tunnel which leaves us with two, which one you wanna pick?"

Spike looked at the two tunnels and took time to think.

"We should take the Shadow tunnel; we've been through it before so there shouldn't be too many surprises"

"Alright mate, speed first" said the grinning purple weasel.

Spike frowned slightly at the thought of his friend still letting him head into danger first, but decided to let it go. He had another friend to help out any way, with that thought he entered the tunnel.

But before Nack could enter the shutter flew down and slammed shut locking Nack out.

"What the! Mate! I can't get in!"

"Well looks like you're taking Miles' tunnel Nack!" yelled back the calm porcupine.

Nack sighed before turning and heading over to the only remaining tunnel, he hated heading into the unknown first. It was so much safer for him when Nite was around, he always just charged in first preventing any surprises for himself.